10-Year-Old Mastic Girl Saved After Choking On Chips
MASTIC, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- A 10-year-old Long Island girl is alive thanks to the help of a Good Samaritan and police officers.
Alana Kiceina was chasing the family dog outside her Mastic home on Abbott Avenue Wednesday afternoon while eating Doritos when around 4:40 p.m., she collapsed and stopped breathing after choking on the chips, the girl's mother told police.
WCBS 880's Sophia Hall with Officer Maureen Bourguignon
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As Alana lay unconscious on her front lawn, Ridge resident Shawn Mitchell, who was buying firewood nearby, sprang into action and began performing CPR on the little girl, police said.
"I have a 6-year-old," Mithcell said. "If that had happened to my daughter I hope somebody would do it in place of me."
Police officers responded to the scene and quickly took over.
"She was going into cardiac arrest," Officer Maureen Bourguignon told WCBS 880's Sophia Hall. "At the time you're thinking 'God, please give me a hand here.'"
Bourguignon grabbed her defibrillator and oxygen and was able to restore the girl's pulse.
Alan Kiceina, the girl's father, was five hours away at work and rushed home after his daughter was taken to the hospital.
"Emotionally, I'm like, 'I don't even need a job five hours away,'" Kiceina said. "I want to be with my family all the time now."
Alana was taken to Stony Brook University Medical Center, where she remains in critical condition. "Alana is in critical condition and is being treated for a pulmonary hemorrhage after cardiac arrest. She remains on a ventilator to assist her breathing and is under the care of a team of Stony Brook pediatric specialists," according to Daniel Sloniewsky, MD, a pediatric intensive care specialist.
WCBS 880's Sophia Hall with the good Samaritan and girl's father
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Although the girl can't speak her father said she is communicating.
"I grabbed her hand and she grabbed and squeezed it," Kiceina said.
Alana is expected to be released in a week and doctors believe she will make a full recovery.
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